Are you a Christ Follower?

How to be a Christ follower?

Summoning the crowd along with His disciples, He said to them, “If anyone wants to be my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”. Mark 8:34 (HCSB)

Step one, Deny Yourself

What does this mean to the Children’s minister? For me it means laying aside my plans for my life and the ministry that God has placed me over.

There was a time when I thought that I wanted to be more than a children’s minister. As if that position was not important enough or glamorous enough. I now realize that this is my calling from God and as such I can do nothing more important, nothing that has greater value than follow after God and his call in my life.

Now that I have embraced this calling, to deny myself means that I lay aside all preconceived notions that I might have of what a children’s ministry should look like. My plans have no place in God’s ministry. God’s plans for his ministry are my marching orders.

Step two, Take up Your Cross

Jesus gave this challenge directly after telling his disciples about his upcoming death. So imagine if you will how the disciples might have received this. Was Jesus telling them that they too must die a terrible death? Does this mean that all who follow Jesus must also die by crucifixion? No certainly not.

What Jesus was telling his disciples, and by extension us, was that a part of denying ourselves is to obediently follow in the path that God has ordained for each of us. Jesus was being called by God to literally pick up a cross and go to Golgotha for the sake of mankind. It was not a pleasant assignment to be sure but it was his to bear alone.

Each of us has our own cross to bear. We each have our own assignments from God. They are as varied as mankind itself. Each one uniquely fitted and designed for each life. Our days and our mission were planned out for us before we were ever born. We have a calling and a purpose. God has plans for us; our job is to follow him in that calling. It begins with denying our own wants and plans and then picking up call from God.

For some it involves vocational ministry. For some our cross and calling will be played out in the trenches of everyday life. In the factories, boardrooms, and living rooms of this world. You may be called to dig ditches for God, revolutionize the banking world, or raise godly children in a loving Christian home. None is more important than the any other when we are following God’s call in our lives. Whatever our cross we must willingly deny ourselves and pick it up.

It takes daily devotion to this one calling. In the parallel passage in Luke, Jesus tells us to daily pick up our cross and follow after him. Daily commitment requires a daily decision to lay aside what we want for our lives and for the day that awaits us. Even after we have followed Jesus in a overall direction for our lives, daily following Him in his calling for the day is the requirement for being his follower. This leads us to the third ingredient of being a follower.

Step three, Follow Him

I have heard it said that if you think you are a good leader look behind you to see if anyone is there. If not then you had better find a different term for yourself. The word leader implies that someone is following. The same is true for those who claim to be a follower of Christ. The term follower implies that you are following. You can’t follow if you don’t know where Jesus is.

One of my favorite studies of all times has been Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. The precepts behind this study are simple and yet profound. We must determine where God is working and then follow Him. You see you can deny yourself and decide that you need Jesus, pick up your cross by choosing to obey Christ for your life’s calling, but if you don’t follow after God. What good will it do?

I am a Children’s minister. My heart’s desire is to make disciples out of children and help parents live out their calling to be the spiritual leaders of their homes. Yet if I am not following Jesus in this ministry that he has placed me in, then I am turning it into my ministry. I would be off doing my own thing. Sure, I would still be considered a children’s minister. I can even come up with great programs that educate and motivate children and parents, but if I am not following after God I am not being as affective as I could be.

God has a plan for me and he wants to lead the way in that calling. There is great comfort in knowing that we are following Jesus. With Jesus right there with me leading the way there is no fear because He will never let me down. I will always remember following after God when he called my wife and I to leave everything behind in Illinois and travel to Texas to attend Seminary. I had to quit my job of fifteen years, sell our house, leave family and friends behind, and move our little clan 800 miles away without so much as a promise of a job when we got there. Yet there was no fear because God was with me. I was following after him and I knew He would not let me down.

What confidence there is in that truth. You may be called on to make some scary decisions in your life while following God, but you can make those decisions with confidence when you know that you are following in obedience. The alternative is not so sure. If we are blazing our own trail we can only be sure of one thing. We will be missing the blessings of God. We may be doing something good, but if it is not what God we miss the blessing.

When you are following someone you have to keep your eye on them at all times. If you look down they might move and you will not have noticed. Following Jesus means that you are in constant communication with him to see where he is leading. That is one of the reasons why the spiritual discipline of a daily time with God is so important. If you aren’t in regular communication, how do you know where he is?

That reminds me of a funny story that happened to me while in the Army while stationed in Germany. I was the driver of an M1A1 tank. My company was changing locations late at night, or early morning to be exact. We had been up for more than 20 hours. The column of tanks was moving very slowly and resembled a traffic jam on I35 in downtown Dallas. We would move for a little while and then set for what seemed like an eternity. Everyone else in my tank was asleep. I could tell because of the snoring coming over the intercom.

Inevitably one of the stops was just a little too long and I too succumbed to the sleep monster. I can only assume that the tanks behind us thought that we had broken down and went around us and no one contacted us because we were on radio silence. Whatever happened, when I regained consciousness the tank in front of me that I had been following was not there. The tanks behind me were no were to be found. We were alone on the road in the dark with no way of knowing where everyone else was. I put the tank in drive and poured on the diesel. What an eternity and a half past (though I am sure that it was not as long as it seemed) before we caught up to the rest of the company and we pulled into our new location right behind the last tank. Much to my relief, no one ever knew what happened.

But the point is I had taken my eye off the tank I was following, and I was lost, if only momentarily. A true follower of Jesus must stay in touch with him in order to remain a follower and not a sleeping talk driver separated from the rest of his company. Following requires knowing where the leader is.

So do you want to be a follower?